


an-tet

by foundCarcosa



Category: Fable 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Book Series: The Dark Tower, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 05:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6107065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garth is having a difficult time realising that Sparrow wants him just as much as he wants her.<br/>Bonus commentary from one Roland Deschain at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an-tet

**Author's Note:**

> **An-tet;**  
>  The term _tet_ refers to people linked by the same destiny or goals. _An-tet_ implies intimacy of all kinds. To speak an-tet to someone is to be completely honest and open, to share all. It also means to sit in council. Roland and his trailmates are both ka-tet and an-tet. An-tet can also imply sexual intimacy. In _Wizard and Glass,_ Roland refers to the first time he and Susan made love as the first time they were together _an-tet._ A mere sexual encounter does not necessarily imply _an-tet._
> 
> { From the Dark Tower Glossary.  
> This is one of those fics that is more personal than it should be, with the kind of ending even a child like Me hopes for. }

It is dusk when Garth returns, both wired and weary from the trek into town for groceries and sundries. Sparrow had tried to keep him in bed as dawn gently bloomed into morning, sucking her teeth when he rose from the bed and began to fuss about the cottage. He could feel her eyes on him as he distracted himself with picking up the clothing she'd left strewn about, cleaning out the cookpot, setting all the cookware back in their places.

As he escaped under the pretense of going into town for groceries, he felt every inch the coward that he was being. And he didn't try to suppress the feeling, because he knew he deserved it -- he carried it with him all the way into town and all the way back, knowing it would cost him nothing to drop his pretense of composure and distance, knowing all Sparrow wanted from him was honesty.

But he'd fallen into the dangerous trap of worshipping her, of turning the passion of his love into misplaced piety, and he couldn't touch her. Not with hands like his. Not with a hungry, yearning heart like his.

The house is quiet when he returns, the purples and pinks of sunset still lingering in the softness of the shadows. The scent of venison and freshly-baked bread is heavy in the air, and his stomach grumbles. He hangs the fruits and vegetables from the hooks near the washbasin, leaves the herbs to dry out on the wooden board, sets his parcel of casual-reading books from Fiction Burns in the corner with the other piles of books -- one day, he'll get around to commissioning one of the carpenters to build him a nice sturdy bookshelf, but he always forgets to seek one out.

There is no sign of Sparrow at first, and he is disturbed at the silence -- but when he stops and listens, he hears her breathing. Heavily. She gasps, almost in response to his listening, and he strides towards the bedroom door, believing the worst.  
He flattens his palm against the ajar door and pushes it open.  
His worried look smooths out into blank disbelief. Then he shuts his eyes and backs out of the room, pulling the door back to where he'd found it.

He opens his mouth to cry pardon, but the words stick in his throat, and he retreats into the big room, using the furniture to guide himself along in his suddenly preoccupied state, halting at the window, where he splays his hands upon the sill and breathes deeply.

In his mind, Sparrow is still lying on her stomach stretched across their bed, one of her hands buried in her voluminous hair and the other buried somewhere he can't see, but he knows exactly where it is, as her hips roll into the press of her fingers and her eyes roll up to catch him, stunned and chagrined, framed in the doorway.

His lines, those traitorous bluish-white extensions of his Will, are pulsing so insistently it is painful. He feels faint, because all the blood in his brain had rushed elsewhere.  
He thinks that her eyes were knowing when they tilted up to meet his. He thinks that... just maybe...

It is impossible. He puts the thought out of his mind, cursing himself savagely for his presumption. But his blood is up, fuelled by the look in her eyes, or his interpretation of the look in her eyes, and he can barely focus. He certainly doesn't notice right away when one of his hands leaves the windowsill to press down against his swiftly rising erection. He closes his eyes and grits his teeth and pushes against it, delighting in the jolt of pain it sends into his core.  
But the pain of denial is not enough. His desire surges back in retaliation, and his hand convulses around his groin, squeezing, tugging, his breath expelling in a pained sigh. He wants. He wants _her._ The pious denial doesn't work anymore. Not now that he's seen what he's seen.

"You know, I sleep with you every night and yet it's still impossible to get you into bed," Sparrow quips irritably, shattering his self-flagellatory reverie. He turns his head but not his body, leaning closer to the window, trapping his shame against the wall. What she's said doesn't register at first, but she has more to say on the subject, anyway.  
"You weren't supposed to _leave,"_ she adds with visible exasperation, coming closer, her hands splayed out and her face arranged in a full-body expression of _duh._ "I don't know how much more of a hint I can possibly give you, Garth."

"What... what are you--" Garth stammers, although realisation is dawning upon him, his stomach sinking.

"I want you," she huffs, her hands curling into fists and perching on her hips as she stares at him in disbelief. "To _fuck_ me? You know? That thing we did once but haven't even gotten close to since you came back from Samarkand talking about how much you'd missed me?"

"Oh, Gan," Garth mumbles in dismay, letting his forehead thunk against the window.

"What is wrong? What am I doing wrong?" Sparrow throws her hands up in the air and leaves them there.

"Nothing," he is hasty to respond, his head still pressed to the window, "nothing. Not a thing. I... I thought..."

"You thought _what?"_

"Sparrow, you are..." He pushes away from the window and faces her, feeling small and dumb and _young,_ like he hadn't felt in a long, long time -- but perhaps he deserves this, too. He has no choice but to be earnest, since he'd made so much of a fool of himself already. "You are a dream come true, and people like me only know how to dream. What do I do? The last person I loved with this much of me was a man, a man named Lucien, and--" He stops before his voice betrays him, breathes, continues. "Well, you know how that ended. I'm... not used to... I'm not used to feeling like this. It _hurts_ to want someone this much. You think to yourself, and it sounds so logical, you think, _surely they don't feel the way I do. There must be something wrong with me._ I thought..."

Sparrow's face has softened slightly, but she shakes her head at him, hard, her hair swinging in a swift arc. His words grow still on his tongue.  
Her fingers twitch towards him, the most imperceptible of beckons, but she'll give him nothing else. Her eyes are locked with his, but they reveal nothing. The decision is upon him. The burden of vulnerability is upon him.

Garth falters, but not for long -- he takes a halting step forward, then more, swiftly closing the distance between them, unable to help himself, and when he reaches up to take her face in hand her arms automatically lock around him like a vise, and her lips yield to his immediately, and he can feel her lines pulse against him as insistently as his pulse against hers, and he knows he'd been wrong all this time, and he's _glad_ he's been wrong all this time, because when heat surges through him like molten lava and he groans and presses himself to her, she sighs and presses back, and it's better than anything he's known since... since time irrelevant.

And time remains irrelevant as dusk sinks into night, and Garth mumbles something about lighting the lamp but his breath feathers over the sensitive skin of her breast and she forgets what he says as soon as he says it, her back arching and her legs curving around his, and it doesn't matter anyway because the rhythmic, rolling pulse of their markings gives them all the light they need. Garth loses himself in the feel of her flesh under his hungry hands, the quiver and tensing of her muscles wherever he presses his lips, but he cannot ignore the surge of her hips against him, seeking, reaching, drawing him in.

He doesn't last long, having restrained himself for so long that he is powerless against the waves of numbing ecstasy -- _rightness_ \-- that break over him when he enters her, but Sparrow doesn't mind. Her face is open and loving as she laughs at him, kissing him, cradling his head against her chest. "It's all right, you just owe me now, big time, sai, big time."

_"Being an-tet is difficult," the last gunslinger admits, his hands dangling off his knees as he hunkers at the edge of the cliff. He looks off into the distance for a moment, his jaw working, and then he appraises Garth with hard, knowing eyes. "You'll think you don't feel like yourself anymore. Everything you want, everything you need, will be all caught up in her. Your heart will belong to her. Your body will belong to her. And you'll instinctively want to hoard it all away from her, because it's yours, and you're the master of your own body, and mind, and heart, and only you're supposed to know how deep your hunger goes, and to be that vulnerable to someone feels like being herded to the gallows, where the noose winks lovingly at you, waiting._

_"But it's..." Roland pauses, shrugs. Laughs a little, dryly. "It's more worth it than anything else you'll know, son of Nevets. Your pain isn't yours anymore, it's hers. You'll_ have _to go to her. And if you're truly an-tet, then she'll take it from you, and she'll be glad to. And you'll weep when she is asleep, like a wretched child, knowing you'll never be able to do without her, ever again."_

_"Well, but... if you were first an-tet with Susan, how can you stand it...?" Garth is hesitant to ask the loaded question, but he needs to know._

_Roland laughs again, no more than a_ heh _uttered in the back of his throat -- a_ little do you know _\-- and looks away, his eyes distant, and softer for it. "I said 'first,' didn't I? Sometimes ka is sweet, and forgiving, and loves even a child like me." He faces Garth again, just before pushing himself to his feet and returning to camp. "Like us."_


End file.
